Weston Chronicles: The evolution of town's school system

As we watch the construction of the new Field School, it is interesting to look back at how students were educated in the “olden days.”

Pamela W. Fox

As we watch the construction of the new Field School, it is interesting to look back at how students were educated in the “olden days.”

We’ve all heard about one-room schoolhouses. Weston had six of them, called “district schools” – two on the north side, two in the center, and two on the south side.

The first district schools were rude buildings, standing at the edge of the road “without a foot of ground belonging to the district, except that covered by the schoolhouse,” according to a mid-19th century school committee report.

In the colonial period, residents in various parts of the town were required to build and maintain these neighborhood schools at their own expense.

Not until 1827 did the state Legislature permit local governments to support public schools for all children for 12 weeks a year. Not until 1858 did the state mandate schooling for children between 8 and 15.

Between 1851 and 1853, Weston built six new schoolhouses to replace earlier “dilapidated and uncomfortable” ones. They were built on quarter-acre parcels deeded to the town for that purpose.

In 1859, the school committee proudly described the “airy, neat and tasteful buildings, affording ample room, and possessing almost every convenience to be expected or desired in a village schoolhouse.”

The report added, “You have in each district a good-sized yard and playground … which may be ornamented with shade trees, shrubs and flowers; and when your children are there, in their innocent sports, shall present a most charming picture.”

The new schools were designed in the Italianate style popular at the time, with bracketed cornices and other unnecessary but charming architectural features.

Initially only one of them had a well. Students at the other schools had to go to neighboring houses for water. They drank from a common cup.

There were separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls, as well as separate outhouses in back separated by a fence.

In her memoir “Growing Up in Weston,” Alice Fraser wrote that, at her school, “There was a big iron stove in the room, and a woman in the neighborhood made the fire in cold weather.”

Alice Fraser recalled that washing blackboards and clapping erasers were chores she liked to do after school. When there was a bad snowstorm, her teacher, Miss Rebecca McKenna, usually stayed overnight at her house, as she was a friend of the family.

Fraser recalled that Miss McKenna was “horrified when I told her that she once made me stand in a corner when I was in first grade, and once had tied me in my chair.”

“Perhaps I would be called an ‘overactive’ child,” she added.

In 1854, the town finally funded a high school, initially called the Centre School and located in a room at the Town Hall. It was not strictly graded, and students ranged in age from 11 to 20. Not only did it provide the opportunity for more advanced study but it also saved the town money.

The school committee proudly pointed out why: “For by removing the larger scholars that needed a male teacher, female teachers, who were better qualified to teach the younger scholars, could be provided.”

The town saved money because the women earned $17 to $20 a month, compared with $50 to $60 a month for male teachers.

District schools had as many as 49 pupils of varying ages enrolled in any one term. It took a special person to manage such a classroom. One of the best remembered was Anna Coburn, who took over District School #4 on North Avenue in 1880.

According to reports, in Miss Annie’s classroom, “order prevailed and neatness enthroned itself.”

In 1890, a Boston Globe article called Coburn “a young woman who more than any other except (organ factory owner) Mr. Hastings himself, exercises a moral influence in the community.”

When Anna Coburn, then in her 40s, married Francis Henry Hastings in 1899, she retired from teaching, because female teachers were not allowed to be married.

By the time Coburn retired, only two district schools were still operating, #4 on North Avenue and #5 on South Avenue at the corner of Ware Street.

Students in other areas were transported to a grammar school located where Brook School Building C is today.

The change to centralized schools took place in 1893. In making this change, school officials cited equal advantages for students in all parts of town, better facilities, the ability to group students by grade, and “increased educational life and energy.”

Despite these benefits, residents on the north and south side pleaded for their neighborhood schools to remain open. School #5 was finally closed as an economic measure during World War I, but the North Avenue School remained open until the end of the 1931-32 school year.

Anna Coburn was succeeded by perhaps the most acclaimed teacher in Weston history, Elizabeth Viles. “Miss Lizzy,” as she was known, started teaching in 1872, immediately after graduating from Weston High School. She taught for 26 years at School #5 and then transferred to School #4 because it was closer to her home.

Five pages of the 1919 Town Report were devoted to tributes paid to her upon her retirement after 47 years of teaching. One accolade summed up her influence in this way:

“The work done in your schoolroom is done so quietly that an unskilled observer might be misled into thinking that little or no work was done at all. But to one whose eyes have been opened the sight is fascinating. The dull child is encouraged; the inaccurate one corrected; the boisterous are repressed; the wayward checked; and the numerous duties of the schoolroom are faithfully discharged with a patience, energy and accuracy that are of more value inasmuch as they are taught by a living example, than anything your pupils learn in the books.”

Four of Weston’s one-room schoolhouses are still standing.

District School #1, also known as the Schoolhouse on the Rock, is located at what is now 280 Boston Post Road. It was converted to a residence in 1900.

School #2, now a residence at 700 Boston Post Road, was originally located on Highland Street and was moved to its current location when the State Road Bypass was constructed in the early 1930s.

School #6, located at 96 Brown St. at the corner of Winter Street, is also a residence.

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